Elon Musk-owned social media platform Twitter has threatened legal action against Meta Platforms over its new app Threads.
According to news outleft Semafor, Twitter has accused the Mark Zuckerberg-owned social media giant of poaching former employees to create a “copycat” application.
Alex Spiro, a lawyer for Twitter sent a letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg accusing the company of engaging in “systematic, willful, and unlawful misappropriation of Twitter's trade secrets and other intellectual property,” Semafor reported.
Elon Musk has said that "competition is fine, cheating is not", but according to BBC Meta has denied the claims.
Competition is fine, cheating is not
July 6, 2023“Twitter intends to strictly enforce its intellectual property rights, and demands that Meta take immediate steps to stop using any Twitter trade secrets or other highly confidential information,” Spiro wrote in a letter obtained by Semafor.
AdvertisementAndy Stone, Meta's communications director, told Semafor that Twitter's accusations are baseless. “No one on the Threads engineering team is a former Twitter employee — that's just not a thing,” he said.
Meanwhile, Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino took a jibe at Threads by tweeting that "We're often imitated -- but the Twitter community can never be duplicated."
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July 6, 2023
Whether you're here to watch history unfold, discover REAL-TIME information all over the world, share your opinions, or learn about others -- on Twitter YOU can be real.
YOU built the Twitter community. 🙏👏 And that's irreplaceable. This…Mark Zuckerberg launched Threads app on July 6. So far, the app has amassed more than 30 million sign-ups, Zuckerberg said.
The app, which is launched to take on Elon Musk's Twitter is designed by Instagram.
"Instagram is where billions of people around the world connect over photos and videos. Our vision with Threads is to take what Instagram does best and expand that to text, creating a positive and creative space to express your ideas," Meta said in an official statement.
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